Sen. Bill Doyle earns top award from Vermont Historical Society

The Vermont Historical Society presented Sen. Bill Doyle, R-Washington, with its President’s Award last Saturday to acknowledge his “lifelong preservation of Vermont’s history through community documentaries, professorship at Johnson State College, History Day judging, active engagement with the VHS and other heritage organizations, and many other heroic history efforts.”

The society also created a William T. Doyle History Day Fund.

Mark Hudson, executive director for the Historical Society, noted, “The VHS has created the William T. Doyle Vermont History Day Fund to support activities associated with this essential educational event.” Vermont History Day is an exciting education program that encourages students to explore a historical topic and present their research at a statewide competition.

The society’s news release explained, “Each year, students discover and analyze historical sources, presenting their findings in the form of a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance or website at a statewide competition held in early spring. Some projects then qualify for National History Day in late spring in College Park, Maryland. History Day is open to students in grades 5 through 12 and home study students ages 10 to 18. Students who participate in History Day develop important academic skills, as well as 21st-century career skills, including teamwork, time management and public speaking.”

Doyle has been a state senator since 1969 and is a former trustee of the Vermont Historical Society.

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About Nancy Remsen

Nancy Remsen covers state government, including the legislative session, and politics. She is a 1972 graduate of Middlebury College and has a masters in journalism from the University of Missouri. She worked briefly for the Associated Press, spent 20 years at the Bangor Daily News in Maine as a reporter and editor before moving to Vermont in 1995.

One Response to Sen. Bill Doyle earns top award from Vermont Historical Society

I lost respect for Senator Doyle in 2008 when he
left out Ron Paul’s name as a Presidential candidate
in a Primary Election Exit Poll. He deserves his own
pair of horse blinders. The major political parties
in Vermont have exerted a shameless hypocrisy
when it comes to teaching democracy!

I see two possible “history of Vermont”
scenarios that independent film makers
could project into the future:

(1) All was quiet. You could hear the rustling sound
of the tree branches as the deer pranced by on their
way to the creek to be shot by wealthy out-of-state
hunters drunk on Vermont micro brewed beer.

Then, Governor Peter Shumlin’s illegal aliens drive their cars
off the cowless farm, cow-free since U.S. Senator
Patrick Leahy worked so hard to increase military activity
in Vermont, that he forgot to preserve small family farms
while simultaneously making factory farms rich, so rich
they don’t have to bother to grow crops to qualify for
federal subsidies.

The illegals drop the kids off at school and go shopping
at a yard sale for hunting rifles and then wander over to
the Vermont National Guard side of Burlington International
Airport and take over a half dozen of the F-35 fighter jets
designed to carry targeted smart nuclear bombs,
and fly them into the – well, the World Trade Center is gone -
they’ll have to think of someplace else impressive to fly into.
Probably, they’ll get high in the cockpit and fly into
Governor Shumlin’s favorite pot pasture.

(2) This next idea for a film short combines the history of Vermont
what really happened in France, so
perhaps independent film makers could do a fictional
story on this happening in Chittenden County blended
with real scenes of people in Burlington protesting the
F-35 fighter jets:

http://indymedia.org/or/2012/12/960285.shtml
BATTLE OF NOTRE-DAME-DES-LANDES:
Megalomaniac Airport Project In Western France
06 Dec 2012 08:38 GMT
During the weekend of 23-25 November, violent clashes occurred,
as military police attacked activists and environmentalists
on an area slated for an airport project in
Notre-Dame-des-Landes – a village near Nantes,
while riot police violently dispersed a support demonstration in the city.

The events have forced major media and politicians to publicly admit that there is an issue.

Some forty years ago, the French State and the loca
authorities
devised the project of
building a huge,
international airport
on the area.

Then, oil was cheap and from the development
of air traffic
at the time,
they calculated that
Nantes Airport
would be saturated by 1983-84.

However,
in 2012
Nantes Airport is still working at only 75% of its capacity.

In 1974, the French Government reserved the area,
so that no new building permit could be delivered.
Thus, nature and small traditional farming were preserved.
The incredible sum of money necessary for the project
was not available, so that the works never started.

In the mid 2000 years, the project was dug out of forgiveness,
mainly supported by the long time mayor of
Nantes, Jean-Marc Ayrault,
who is now Prime Minister of France.

The main contractor of the public-private partnership
is the building corporation Vinci, which has also been contracted
to build the
East End Crossing,
in Kentucky.

The local representative of the Ministry of Interior,
who was in charge until 2009, got a position at Vinci as soon
as he left his official function, raising the suspicion that he
was already working for the corporation as a civil servant.

Further, the area is a wetland, the importance of which for global climate
has been proved in between, so that French Law now demands
that any destruction of wetland be compensated by the creation of
another one elsewhere. Vinci does not provide for it in its project
, which makes it unlawful.

As the project was dug out of the administration files in 2005,
the directly impacted people – local inhabitants and small farmers –
formed the Inter Communal Association of Impacted Populations, ACIPA,
organizing meetings, debates and music shows. Leftist and environmentalist
activists who opposed the project then decided to occupy the area,
settling in abandoned houses and building cabins in the woods.
Collective gardens, libraries, a newspaper, individual farming projects were created.

Resistance was not unified.
The farmers and inhabitants were suspicious of environmentalists
or anarchist squatters. Even the activist groups differed from each other.
But on October 16th, military police harassment began,
bringing the different groups closer to each other.
Local farmers and inhabitants dropped their suspicion.
On November 27th, a huge demonstration (some 38000 people)
took place on the area. Political stars from ‘green’ and ‘leftist’
parties showed up. But on Friday November 23rd,
the military police violently attacked.
As a result, resisters became more united than they had ever been,
while dissent is growing among the ‘green’ and ‘progressive’ politicians
who take part in government. They have obtained a six months postponement
to allow an environmental impact study. But evictions go on.
There are wounded and people detained.

“If you go there, please know that this struggle
is to keep the forests,
the fields,
the houses that are being rebuild
(after destruction by cops and diggers)
and to keep the animals safe that live here.
Bring trash bags
, because after this big demo 17th november,
a lot of trash is left behind
and more and more people come to live there
because its easy and free,
but they don’t give a f* about the environment!!
This is a struggle, not a freeParty!!

This is also a callout for decentralised actions
against VINCI,
the state and borders!!! “